Wings Over Scotland

We have to go out this afternoon so we’ll make this quick. Blah blah too poor blah blah no jobs blah blah individual smear blah blah fascist state blah blah invaded by Belgium or something blah blah. Frankly we wouldn’t even bother clicking the links if we were you. If you miss them today, the same stories – or very slight variations on them – will be back in the Scottish media tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and all the days after that all the way to autumn 2014.

The media (and some of the more gullible elements of the blogosphere) recently got itself into a lather about Douglas Alexander’s latest contribution to the independence debate – excellently rebutted by novellist and playwright Alan Bissett – which presented his vision of a post-referendum Scotland that voted No to independence.

Here’s an alternative picture. But unlike the typical “Better Together” scare story, these are not fabricated fantasies. Many are happening right now, while others are merely under discussion and in preparation.

This is what you’re voting for if you vote No.

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When someone sent us the image below on Twitter, we actually went to the “Better Together” Facebook page to verify it was real, because it can be hard to tell the No campaign’s real leaflets and posters from satire. But it’s totally genuine.

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Fans of TV panel shows will probably be aware of a regular strand on the BBC’s Mock The Week called “Between The Lines”, in which one comedian delivers lines from a speech in the persona of a public figure, while the other translates what they really mean. There’s a chucklesome example here.

For a bit of fun we’ve decided to have our own attempt, with a letter sent out this week to the No campaign’s mailing list by the independence debate’s own Hugh Dennis: “Better Together” campaign director and creative truth interpreter Blair McDougall.

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At least the price is falling this time round, we suppose.

Click for teh bigs. You know where it’s from by now, right?

For four days, anyway.

Don’t be mean about the swede. They’re trying, bless ’em.

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Joyce McMillan in the Scotsman today, as the Scottish press is finally, after three days, shamed into acknowledging what happened on Tuesday.

“What I see at Westminster now is not an alternative politics that avoids the pitfalls of nationalism, but an instinctive, backward-looking British nationalism that is even worse: a farrago of double standards about Westminster and Holyrood, and of reactionary nonsense about the nature of national identity in the 21st century, combined with a complete vacuum of progressive policy, and an instinctive willingness – on the part of the Labour Party – to side in this debate with what is perhaps the most privileged and reactionary government the UK has seen in a century.

The truth is that the tone of the No camp’s response to the independence debate has – in too many cases – been so reactionary, so negative, and so fundamentally disrespectful of the Scottish Parliament as an institution, that I now find it hard to think of voting with them, no matter what my views on the constitution.

And this, for me, is a new experience in politics – to enter a debate with a strongish view on one side of the argument, and to find myself so repelled by the tone and attitudes of those who should be my allies that I am gradually forced into the other camp.”

We’ll have more on that subject later this morning. Don’t miss it.

We’ve been warning for a while now that the independence debate is likely to get uglier before it gets prettier this year, despite the protestations of the No camp that they want a mature and respectful discussion. The bleaker reality, however, is revealed by former Labour spin doctor Simon Pia in today’s Dundee Courier.

His column “The Long And Winding Road To 2014” isn’t online as far as we can tell, but the SNP’s Kevin Pringle kindly took a snapshot of the piece for us. You can click on the image above to read the whole thing, but one passage in particular is revealing when it comes to what we should expect in the next 18 months.

“What is particularly amusing is hearing the Nats appeal for a high-minded debate being echoed by Alistair Darling and the uber-unionists. One ploy Darling can be relied on is to bore everyone senseless over the debate while his underling big Blair McDougall and his “bettertogether” muckers get down and dirty in the gutter with Blair Jenkins and co of the Yes lot.

My money would be on Big Blair rather than wee skinny Blair for that one. But whether one likes it or not, it is in the interests of the unionsts to lower the tone.”

(Wings Over Scotland accepts no responsibility for the grammatical or literary failings of either Mr Pia or the Courier’s sub-editors, if it still has any.)

We’re inescapably reminded by Pia’s comments of an oft-quoted (and -misquoted) piece of wisdom that’s most commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw: “I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”

There’s an absolutely despicable article on Labour Uncut today that we’re reluctant to link to. There’s a Google Cache version here, and in case it dies we’ve reprinted the whole thing below (sue us, Labour Uncut) so you don’t need to give the site traffic.

For the most part it’s a tedious rehash of the tired old “votes for 80 million expat and diaspora Scots” routine, but it’s enlivened with some ugly, base abuse of the First Minister, or “the fat, failed economist from Hollyrood” [sic] as author and Labour member Ian Stewart refers to him. The worst part, though, comes just before the end.

“At a time when the French voters of London have their own seat in the National Assembly, when serious moves are being made to press for a similar accommodation in the Irish Republic, not to mention Sinn Feinn’s mooting of some kind of a say for the wider diaspora, what do we get? Oh yes, the chance to maybe need a passport to visit granny.

Perhaps Mr Salmond made his attitude clear to these millions when he organised the great “Homecoming 2009” a while back – when it was clear to all that if your accent was in English rather than American, you had best not bother.”

This, we feel wholly confident in asserting, is a defamatory and libellous statement. The notion that Alex Salmond ever suggested, let alone made it “clear to all”, that English people weren’t welcome at Homecoming 2009 is one utterly unsupported in fact, and a normally-respectable site like Labour Uncut should be ashamed to have printed an open and direct accusation that the First Minister is a racist.

The battle over independence will get ugly in the next 18 months. We hope the Yes side doesn’t descend to the depths of Mr Stewart, and that the aggressive provocation of the Unionists doesn’t lead to the spilling of blood in Scotland as it continues to do in Northern Ireland. If it does, forgiveness will be a long time coming.

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The modern Scottish independence movement is 84 years old, dating back to the 1928 formation of the National Party of Scotland, forerunner to the SNP. It is a peaceful, inclusive, civic and democratic movement – to the best of our knowledge, and almost uniquely, not a single life has been lost in pursuit of Scottish independence.

Despite this, so-called “Unionists” (more properly described as British nationalists) still regularly try to portray independence campaigners as violent racists. As recently as a few days ago, one prominent Labour activist frequently employed as a commentator on BBC Scotland political shows attempted to perpetuate baseless (but oft-repeated by Unionists) 70-year-old smears that the former SNP leader Arthur Donaldson was a Nazi sympathiser engaged in attempts to collaborate with the Germans during WW2, sabotage the British war effort and set up a Vichy-style government in Scotland. These claims were cited, astonishingly, as evidence of “the SNP’s fascist past”.

Such attacks are all the more bizarre given the constant reminders on the news that the only nationalists attempting to secure their goals by violence in the United Kingdom are those who do so in the name of Britishness, waving the Union Jack.

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A press release on the always-positive Scottish Labour website this morning blares a wake-up call to the reckless and irresponsible Scottish Government. “IPPR Report Shows SNP Economic Policy Is Financially Illiterate”, it rages, going on to quote the party’s finance spokesman Ken Macintosh:

“This report shows that the SNP’s economic policy is financially illiterate. Not only do we get more spending than we raise as a result of being in the Union, but the SNP’s commitment to turn Scotland into a low-tax corner of Europe would see revenues plummet and public spending slashed to the bone. Scotland would be crippled by what could only be described as economic suicide.”

Oof. Strong words for sure. Hang on, though – which SNP economic policy are we actually talking about here? The preamble to Macintosh’s furious blast references “the SNP’s plans to cut Corporation Tax to 12.5%”. But the only problem with that is that the SNP doesn’t appear to have any such plans.

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We’ve taken quite a lot of cold medication this week, readers, and it’s caused us to have a bit of an epiphany. We’ve realised that our constant advocacy of independence is a recklessly optimistic position which takes no account of the very real dangers of separating Scotland from the rest of the UK (and the world), and that in order to be responsible citizens we ought to present a more balanced picture.

We’ve decided, therefore, to use this page to keep track of the numerous and often serious potential consequences of a Yes vote in 2014, as helpfully pointed out by our concerned countrymen south of the border and the cooler heads in our own land.

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